Fridays for fighting

* Crashing into Friday after a long, long week. Of course, it couldn’t be an easy landing. We had to have some stupid building go up in flames and collapse on itself just before airtime, sending my lovingly crafted stories to Davy Jones’ locker as we chucked it live to Kim in the field.

I really hate breaking news. Unless it’s something huge… like a dead president or finding Osama bin Laden, I’d rather watch an interesting story than an immediate one. Really? A fire? Is it my house? No? Then I’m goin’ back to my frosted mini-wheats. Call me when I should care.

* I look forward to Monday and another opportunity to be unable to contact our anchors and photographers in the field. My show tends to be the dress rehearsal for all the other morning shows, so we just work out the kinks. And if Sox Opening Day is anything like Cubs Opening Day, I’m going to need a dose of industrial-grade horse tranquilizers to calm me down post-debacle.

* Today Rob and Zoraida tag-teamed me to berate me for not signing up for the NBC savings program. It’s kinda like a 401K, but no one calls it a 401K for some reason. I haven’t signed up for it because I don’t understand it and the phone book-sized benefits manual they tossed at me when I became a full time staff member last year is, shall we say, “daunting.”

Rob and I literally abandoned our morning duties as he forced me to log on to the company benefit website and tinker around for a while. My argument was that every place I’ve ever worked wouldn’t allow you to be vested in the 401K until, like, 5 years or something. And since I started working in TV in 2001, I’ve averaged a new job every 10 months. By that math, I should overthrow NBC Overlord Jeff Zucker by 2010. If I’m never around long enough to get vested, what’s the point? But Rob insists we’re vested immediately. Also, there’s supposedly a pension I’ll get for working here, but I have no idea how much it is or what I have to do to claim it.

I basically expect to have all my retirement benefits ripped away from me, as happens with every other industry, so I pay little attention to them. I suspect I’m not the only 30-year-old who feels this way. We know Social Security is already dead. I just expect to be warehoused in a self-storage unit for the last few decades of life.

* Dubious research: Playing violent video games makes people more relaxed. I don’t know about that. Whenever I play the ultraviolent (but enjoyable) “God of War,” I’m not more relaxed – I’m more covetous of the ability to grab my enemies and literally rip them in half with my bare hands. Did I mention the game’s hero is equipped with flaming knives chained to his wrists? It’s pretty much the most awesome thing ever.

* Someone nearly as hard core as the guy from “God of War” is John McCain. Did you know he’s rolling around without Secret Service protection? Wow. I kinda want to see him fight someone. I bet he’s relentless.